


22:  City of Refuge

by light_source



Series: High Heat [22]
Category: Baseball RPF, Sports RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-17
Updated: 2011-09-17
Packaged: 2017-10-23 20:08:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/254400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/light_source/pseuds/light_source
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>- That’s how Hawaii is, says Zito. - It sneaks up on you in the weirdest ways, and then afterwards everything else in life just seems to be missing something key.</p>
            </blockquote>





	22:  City of Refuge

28 Dec 07    SEA   8:00a   -   KOA  11:50a   6h 16m   3A   NONSTOP AEQ2  
18 Jan 08    KOA   12:16p -   SEA   7:25p     5h 35m   9D  NONSTOP B7SR

It’s the first just-for-pleasure airline ticket Tim’s ever bought himself, and it was expensive: $1,327.20.

They’ve been flying over the empty expanse of gray-green water for such a long time that Tim’s first glimpse of the blue mountains, spiking out of the ocean and overhung by cloud, seems like a hallucination. When the jet banks and angles back over the improbably turquoise water towards a cluster of thatch-roofed huts, Tim wonders if Hawaii’ll be like an island version of LA, flawless from a distance and fake fake fake up close.

What looks from the air like a fantasy version of a third-world village turns out to be the Kona airport itself - most of it’s outside, if you can believe that. Once Tim’s off the plane, Wilson’s easy to find. Even though he’s not exceptionally tall, he looms above the gaggle of people snagging their golf clubs and their matching luggage sets off the carousels.

There’s something about the way Brian carries himself - maybe it’s that New Hampshire 'Live Free Or Die' thing in him - that gives him an imposing aura.

\- That’s all you got, the carry-on? asks Wilson. Tim nods.

\- Excellent. You’re so ready for Hawaii, dude, says Brian, smiling. He’s got a new goatee, carefully razored threads of beard that trace the outline of his jaw, and a wide, well-defined mustache.

They make their way out to a grocery-store sized parking lot to a battered Jeep. Originally army-green, it’s now red with dust, its canvas sides rolled up, and it’s plastered with a half a dozen different bumper stickers of various vintages that all say the same thing:   _Eddie Would Go_. As they pull out onto the two-lane highway, Tim settles back in the beach-towel-covered seat and grabs the roll-bar with one hand, letting the soft breeze filter through his shirt, cooling the trickle of sweat that’s striping his spine.

Hawaii’s amazing. It’s the middle of winter, but there’s still flowers everywhere - red, pink, yellow, orange - even in the tops of the trees. Along the roadside, in white rocks on the black volcanic soil, are graffiti’d words that anywhere else would likely be spray-painted on the walls of warehouses and train stations: _go bows!  LTL + MATT + SAMMY.  She say write good._

\- How was the flight? asks Brian.

Wilson’s wearing cutoffs, flip-flops, and a yellow Mr. Zog’s t-shirt so old that the neck is coming apart, and there’s an informality about him that Tim hasn’t seen before. Tim, who swapped his Vans for flip-flops back at the airport, helps himself to a hit of coffee from the paper cup in the console between them - black, syrupy, like chocolate, a blast of sugar and _go_. He tips it back and takes another big swig.

Tim swipes his mouth with his fingers, grinning, and Wilson shakes his head.

\- The flight was good, says Tim. - Guys in golf shirts, and the stewardesses kept saying stuff in Hawaiian. I hate that feeling of being jammed in with everybody, fighting for the armrest, so I went for first-class. Totally worth it.

\- You spoiled brat, says Wilson gravely.

\- Exactly what my dad said, says Tim. - That’s how I know it was the right decision.

He pulls out the sunglasses he’s been rummaging around for in his carry-on and puts them on.

\- When did you start drinking coffee, Timmy? asks Wilson.

\- When I started getting up at five to get to the airport, says Tim. - My head’s still back in Seattle.

\- That, says Wilson, - is a problem that _can_ and _will_ be remedied.

//

After they’ve made their way past the tourist condos and the billboards for the shops on Ali’i Drive, the highway is edged by a dense tangle of leaves and flowers and vines. Wilson, with his flair for the dramatic, swerves the Jeep suddenly off the highway onto an unmarked road that seems to lead straight into the cavelike jungle. When they emerge from the dark overhang of green, they jolt up a muddy red track of hairpin turns to the summit of a fairly considerable hill.

\- Zeets loves him some hills, says Tim.

\- And I make a point of loving what Zito loves, says Brian solemnly. - He has excellent taste in places.  And he shares.  Somebody raised that boy right.

Wilson’s eyes crinkle beneath his wraparound sunglasses.

The house that Zito’s procured for them is big and square with a hipped roof, wrapped on all visible sides with porches. There’s an orange plastic kayak leaning up against the front steps, where the bushes are flowering extravagantly in red and pink.

Wilson hauls up on the Jeep’s handbrake with a clonk.

\- Watch where you put your feet, he says, as Tim opens the door on his side. - There’s a chicken population around here that runs the place.

Sure enough, as Tim turns to grab his carry-on from the back seat, a small red hen shoots out from underneath a nearby bush. Careening wildly as though she’s being chased, she leads them up the path to the house and disappears under the porch.

By the front door there’s a clutch of shoes: flip-flops, rubber shower thongs, Keens, a pair of red Converse All-Stars, what Tim recognizes as Zito’s Nike running shoes, and a single mucking boot coated in dried mud.

- _No slippah in da house, brah,_ says Wilson in an unrecognizable accent, kicking off his own zoris into the pile.

Inside, Dallas Braden’s there, sitting at the table next to a pushed-back plate of half-eaten rice, reading a newspaper. The left-hander, who’s only been pitching for Oakland since April, has frizzy beige hair, permanently reddened elbows, and the kind of fish-belly-pale skin that never tans. He’s taller than Brian but as skinny as Tim, and he looks a little like Big Bird.  

Braden gets up to welcome Tim with a backslapping hug and a grunt. The big room’s cluttered with equipment, boogie boards and snorkeling gear, and there are board shorts drying on the backs of chairs. On the table, along with sections of the newspaper, are a couple of pairs of binoculars next to a stack of partly folded maps.

\- I did the due diligence, Braden says to Wilson. - City of Refuge - I can’t say whatever they call it in Hawaiian - that’s the place. It’s that left turn across from the Chevron station about two miles before you get to Captain Cook. There’s a park there or something, a jetty and a boat-launch.

Brian turns to Tim.

\- We’re snorkeling this afternoon, he says - there’s a good reef near here, not too many tourists. You wanna get changed and come with?

Brian looks away for a moment, and then his eyes, dark blue and spiked with nearly black lashes, collide with Tim’s. - By the way, your room’s the one at the end of the hall on the right, he says, - Zeets told me to tell you.

\- Speaking of Zeets, he went out for a paddle, says Braden. - Said he’d be back in a couple hours. You guys hungry? I got some excellent local takeout, he says, rustling around in the styrofoam containers on the table. Wilson peers at one - white rice topped with congealed brown gravy and something garlicky and pungent that Tim can smell from ten feet away - and shakes his head.

\- What is this shit? says Brian.

\- Plate lunch, says Braden. - Beloved of surfers everywhere. If you’re not man enough for that, he continues, - there’s some mangoes and half a watermelon in the fridge. And the rest of that Portuguese sweet bread, if you didn’t already eat it all, you fucker.

\- I’m pretty wiped out, so I’m gonna beg off, says Tim. - I tried to sleep on the plane, but they kept waking me up to ask me if I wanted another drink.  He picks up his bag.

\- You guys go, he continues, over his shoulder as he heads down the hall. - I’ll come find you later.

The room at the end of the hall is tiny, furnished simply with a dresser, a nightstand, and a single bed. Tim dumps his bag on the floor and collapses gratefully on the bed. The pillow’s new and too puffy, and the block-printed Indian bedspread is scratchy and smells like a wet newspaper, but Tim’s too tired to care.

As he melts into sleep, he hears rain slapping hard against the metal roof, and a hiss of breeze, comforting, sifting through the jalousie windows.

//

Some time later he awakens abruptly to the sound of a loud _thwock_ \- a sharp, square noise. The rain’s stopped and the house is quiet except for the plink of water outside the window. The door cracks ajar and Zito’s head pokes inside. When Tim’s eyes meet Zito’s, he lets out a long breath and rolls onto his side.

\- Where the fuck have _you_ been? Tim says, smiling sleepily.

\- I think I timed my arrival perfectly, says Zito. - I ran into Brian and Dallas in the Jeep on my way back. I have a feeling they’ll be gone for awhile. It’s gorgeous now that it’s stopped raining, and there’s no one out there. I know, cause that’s where I was ‘yakking.

It’s so cool, Timmy, he continues. - The sea turtles are here to breed - they come once a year. I must have seen five of them, huge, the size of car wheels. You know, you’re just paddling along in the kayak, and then you see their heads sticking out of the water, and there they are. They come all the way from Australia or something.

\- Tell me about it, but over here, says Tim.

He’s reached out to grab Zito’s hand and now he pulls him down beside him on the narrow bed, and when their mouths meet, Tim feels that familiar shock - it’s delicious, and it’s been such a long time, and _fuck,_ it feels good.

Zito’s back is wet from the kayak, and his legs are sandy against Tim’s and he tastes like salt and he smells like the ocean, but that just makes Tim want him more. Without breaking the kiss, he rolls over onto Zito and leans in to tongue him harder, deeper. He hums a little in his throat, his body lighting up with desire, as he feels Zito’s hands in his hair, around his neck, on his back, his ass.

\- God, I’ve missed you, murmurs Zito. Tim remembers faintly the first time Zito said that - in the car, in LA - and he puts both hands on Zito’s jaw and pulls him into a kiss that’s deep with tongue, fiery and sweet.

Zito’s mouth is achingly familiar but somehow new to Tim, as though he’s changed just enough to be different since they were last together. He smells different too, less refined, more like he’s been out doing stuff, like salt and the beach and sweat. Tim feels Zito’s heart pounding against his, and he grinds against his thighs, hard, ready, moaning a little.

When Tim pulls back to catch his breath, they’re both smiling. Zito buries his face in Tim’s neck and sighs a little, his breath warm and soft, his hair curling thick and soft against Tim’s cheek.

\- I’m kind of glad you weren’t here when I got here, says Tim.

\- What?

\- It would have sucked, says Tim. - We would’ve had to wait for those guys to leave, and it’s fucking hard to concentrate on acting normal when you’re standing there like that and I haven’t seen you for months.

And then there’s that sound - that square-edged _thwock_ again. Or maybe it’s more like a _plock_ , so loud that it seems to echo around the room.

\- What the fuck _is_ that? says Tim.

Zito smiles. - Relax, he says. He points up at the ridgeline, the highest point of the roof.

\- See that greenish thing up there about the size of a finger? Looks like gumby? Like it’s made of jello?

After some scrutiny, Tim finally sees it, and nods.

\- It’s a gecko. A lizard. They’re good luck. Every house here has ‘em. They eat the cockroaches. You’ll get used to ‘em, he says, - and then when you get back to the mainland, you’ll wonder why you never see 'em there.

\- That’s how Hawaii is, Zito continues. - It sneaks up on you in the weirdest ways, and then everything else in life just seems to be missing something key.

Zito's explanation of the sound has calmed Tim a little, and for a long time they lie there in each other’s arms, breathing, taking in each other’s scent and feel. Eventually Tim realizes his pitching arm’s gone to sleep, but he doesn’t move it because he doesn’t care.  He’d be pretty happy, arm or no arm, to stay here indefinitely, he thinks.  In fact, now that he considers it, his pitching arm seems like the least important part of his body.

With his glove hand, he strokes Zito’ s hair back behind his ears absent-mindedly, and curves his finger around the edge of Zito’s ear, where the skin is indescribably soft.

He takes a deep breath.

\- I’ve missed you too, he says to Zito, softly, barely above a mumble.

Zito, who’s been lying on his back, rolls over, his eyes meeting Tim’s with an expression that’s unreadable.

And then they’re back in it, mouths and tongues and hands, squirming out of their clothes like teenagers frantic to feel each other. As the sun sets behind the louvered windows, neither of them notices.  Nor do they see the car lights coming up the hill.

//

For dinner Brian grilled mahi-mahi that even Tim acknowledges was pretty good, and Braden and Wilson have gone downstairs to complete their FIFA 07 grudge match. The house’s only concession to high technology is a big-screen TV hooked up to a Playstation in the basement, and every once in a while, screams come wafting up out of the darkness, and then one voice, higher than the other, and then rumble upon rumble of laughter.

This leaves Zito and Lincecum on the front porch in the dark to finish the Primos they started at dinner.

\- So what’s the drill? Tim asks. Zito tips back his beer to get the last swig, and looks slowly over at him.

\- I believe the tradition has always been to have separate bedrooms but to ignore nocturnal traffic, says Zito. - It was good enough for the Victorians, so it’ll have to be good enough for us.

\- Unwritten rules, says Tim.

\- Yeah, and you know all about ‘em, cause baseball’s full of ‘em, says Zito. - Like no fist-pumps on the mound.  Hustle.  Everyone brawls. Plunk unto others. And so forth.

Tim reaches out and takes his hand, interlacing their fingers.  The night is loud with the sounds of birds and insects, and something flowering on the porch has begun to fill the air with scent.

\- And by the way, Zito says, - there may be some other nocturnal traffic around here that may surprise you. Just sayin’.

\- I'm a bottomless pit, says Tim.  - All secrets die with me.  

\- I  _been_ knowing that about you, says Zito.  - So, he says - just look both ways before you cross.


End file.
